'Little Things' By Raymond Carver

The short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver, is about two married couples drinking gin and having a talk about the nature of love. The conversation is a little sloppy, and the characters make some comments which could either be meaningless because of excessive alcohol in the bloodstream, or could be the characters' true feelings because of excessive alcohol in the bloodstream. Overall, the author uses this conversation to show that when a relationship first begins, the people involved may have misconceptions about their love, but this love will eventually die off or develop into something much more meaningful.

The Short Story “My Father’s Life,” by Raymond Carver illustrates the difficult task of a son trying to find his own sense of identity and individualism while watching his father’s life unravel. Carver explores the relationships of his parents and his own struggle with sharing the same name with his father and the similarities and differences between them.

Micro- short stories have a way of telling a story in a very short and subtle manor by using a lot of symbolism and powerful sentences. This style of writing has a way of leaving the reader with a meaningful message. Two micro-short story authors that have progressed in many fields of literature, just once being micro-stories are authors Molly Giles’ and Pamela Painter. After having read Giles’ short story “The Poet’s Husband” and Painter’s short story “The New Year” the reader is left with a feeling of discomfort and depression for failed relationships. In both stories there is a lack of connection between the couples for they have started to grow less fond of each other and farther apart from what was once happiness. The correlation that ties these two relationships into a similar distress is an on going affair between two very important

In the beginning of “Little Things”, Carver created the scenery of outside to establish the dark side of the relationship. “Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark but it was getting dark on the inside too”; Thus, foreshadowing the relationship on its last leg. As the man packed his belongings, the woman responded “I’m glad you’re leaving. I’m glad you’re leaving!”, Carver now expresses the relationship as being gloomy with no sign of contentment. Man, is portrayed as unhappy and leaving whereas the woman struggles to react without being attentive toward the man’s emotions. Foreshadowing is used to create the start point of this catastrophic ending with the man having empathy for the child and not the woman. Emotions emphasized the foreshadowing once the woman removed the picture of the child out the bedroom, Man now makes effort in having a conversation with the woman by the request that she “bring that back”. Emotions effected more than one point of view in “Little Things” due to the relationship involving two people and a child. Mutual affect had been brought to light with “Love and Basketball”, though Quincy was not a baby when the dispute between his parents and adultery started, his father took the time to address the personal situation with Quincy while he attended college by lying. Yet proof from both stories display the reality of emotions between parents and children in modern situation

Carver presents symbolism throughout his story to represent a darker side of the human heart when it is wounded. “Don’t, she said. You’re hurting the baby, she said. I’m not hurting the baby, he said.” The baby represents the relationship of the man and woman. There is not an actual baby that is being hurt, but their relationship together. Once the “issue was decided” towards the end, it represents how the man and woman’s relationship was no more. In addition, snow is brought up in the beginning to start the mood of the relationship. “...The snow was melting into dirty water.” The snow represents the pure white relationship they had in the beginning. Once the snow melted into dirty water, that shows that their relationship is tainted, fading away, and can never be the same. This also leads into the light that is set towards the house. “The kitchen window gave no light.” The window showing both the darkness of the outside and the inside of the house, represents how darkness is taking over the relationship, and how there is no more light to shine on their love for each other. All three of these symbols connect back to how the man and woman have a codependent relationship.

The short story “Little Things” by Raymond Carver deals with the humanity’s spiteful nature and its desire to flaunt what others can not have. On the surface, the story is about a man, a woman, and baby, none of which have a confirmed relation to each other, and a dispute over who should keep the baby after the man leaves. As the story reaches its end, there is no clear winner and the reader has a sense of unease based on the last line, “In this manner, the issue was decided” (Carver). Carver’s use of dialogue, allusion, and sight/sound imagery help build the darker mood for the story, and his use of those elements ultimately leads to one of Carver’s main messages. By utilizing the previously listed items, Carver highlights the idea that

Raymond Carver, author of “Popular Mechanics”, is a minimalist writer. Using the least amount of setting and character dynamics Carver makes the audience analyze the small details and actions that the people in the story do that would be seemingly nothing. The word ‘little’ at the beginning of the story is something that a lot of readers do not catch the first time reading this story, but it is a very important word that plays into the rest of the story. Carver uses small actions to grab the reader’s attention later in the story. Small actions, such as the woman picking up the baby’s picture and the knocked-down flower pot, take on larger significances, such as what the state of the relationship is, in “Popular Mechanics”.

Short stories have fully developed themes but appear significantly shorter and less elaborate than novels. A similar theme found in short stories “Winter Dreams” written by Scott F. Fitzgerald and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner included the social and environmental influences that encouraged and controlled the character’s life and decisions. In “Winter Dreams”, the main protagonist-- Dexter-- fell into a fixation over a young, whimsical blueblood, Judy Jones. His obsession led him to believe that Judy Jones reciprocated his feelings for her, leaving him bare and mortal-- despite prior beliefs. Following her father’s death, Miss Emily fell into a dark obscurity due to the pressure and compulsion of having to carry on the honorable family name. While using a unique point of view (first person peripheral), “A Rose for Emily” followed a mysterious and desirable woman named Miss Emily as her hometown tried to understand her peculiar ways and began to find her disgraceful. By comparing and contrasting these two literary pieces, a similar organization-- including the writers’ purpose and themes-- should become clear. By using literary devices-- such as point of view, dramatic irony, detail, and figurative language-- Scott F. Fitzgerald and William Faulkner conducted two short stories similar in aim and reasoning, probable for contrasting and comparing elements within the parallel writings.

The literary critic Bryan Aubrey further discusses Carver’s work in a “Critical Essay on a Small, Good Thing”. The critical analysis explores how Carver uses minimalism to emphasize menace in people’s lives. The short and condensed sentences provide a realistic and serious tone for the reader, a good example of this is shown in the short story “A Small, Good Thing”. The tone that is present throughout the story is sadness. Sadness helps create the theme of the story that the world we all live in is a tough one. Carver use’s this theme as a reminder to his readers that life can be cruel at times, and the only thing people can do is reach out to each other as the Weiss family did with the Baker after their son’s death. The minimalistic style used in this short story synthesizes the underlying reality that bad things can happen to innocent people at any given moment. No matter who you are and how many good deeds you may have done, we still all share the same fate called death. Carver use’s death as his source of hidden menace because many people are paranoid that their lives may suddenly end, no one fully understands what life and death is. This is a smart way to provide a necessary tension

Raymond Carver's "A Small Good Thing," a short story that has to do with the lack of interaction and empathy between the baker, Ann and Howard, the finale where the baker is startled to find out about the child's death, asks for mercy and presents them warm cinnamon rolls telling them that "Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this" and they are comforted, reveals particular significance of the title in terms of the story's theme. Also, Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," a story that starts with an ignorant and rude narrator whose wife has called a blind friend to spend the night at their home and according to Carver, "A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to,"(38) has some

I like Carver’s revision,” Little Things” better because it was changed to be more simple, rhythmical, and definite. He also make us think from the inference. First, I realized that he changed many words into plain expression. For example, in “Main”, Caver used the words: “Sonofabitch”, “the back yard”, “a little flower pot”, and “ its head”. He changed these words into “ Son a bitch!”, “the backyard”, “a flower pot”, and “his head”. While I was reading, I feel more smooth and rhythm, so I think he made effective changes.

The short story evokes reminiscent feelings of things that were much simpler to me, now the world continues to become more complex and complicated. In the story, the author portrays how simple her world is as a child: "Because that settlement and that land were my first and for many years only real

The book “Who Moved My Cheese?” is a simple story about mice and “little people” that helps readers handle and deal with changes in their lives. The story is about two mice and two human-like individuals named “little people” (who are the size of the mice). The two mice’s names are Scurry and Sniff. The two little people’s names are Hem and Haw. The story takes place in a “maze” and the characters look for “cheese” to nourish them in the maze. When the characters find cheese, only to have it disappear, they experience change. The different characters show different ways of responding to this change and teach lessons that can be applied to our daily lives.

In Short Cuts, by Raymond Carver, characters experience trials and problems in their lives, whether extreme such as in " A Small, Good Thing" and "Lemonade" or nominal such as in " Vitamins". They all seem to depict these struggles as uphill battles which the characters cannot and mostly do not overcome. The characters throughout Carver's "Short Cuts" struggle through their lives in private desperation, often to ultimately realize that they are bound to the truth of who they really are, which is shown in the story "Neighbors."

The God of Small Things can be defined to have featured numerous themes and styles that allow authors to communicate with audiences effectively. It entails a story of a family that loves in Ayemenem, a town in Kerala India. This paper seeks to offer a detailed analysis of the above story in term of themes, styles, characters, and other elements that are featured by the authors. Some of the significant characters that are featured in the story include Sophie, Rahel, Ammu, and Cochin among other individuals (Arundhati, 15).